


With this ring

by JaqofSpades



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: F/M, VM Movie fic, Veronica Returns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 00:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Somewhere between the unrestrained joy of the melee and the real menace of what followed, it began to beat inside of him.”  Weevil reminds himself of a few things at the high school reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With this ring

**Author's Note:**

> From the random prompt generator at http://shortstoryideas.herb.me.uk/random.htm, which threw up "fidelity, incite, and radio." 
> 
> I suspect this isn't quite finished so have marked it as chapter one. I'm might not look at it again for a little while, however.

Somewhere between the unrestrained joy of the melee and the real menace of what followed, it began to beat inside of him. Just the blood rushing to his head, he thought at first. But then it grew, and swelled, and when she grabbed his hand to inspect his battered knuckles, built to a crescendo.

 _Fidelidad. Fidelidad. Fidelidad._

“I'm okay,” he said quietly, and looked about for Nina. “Have you seen my wife?”

“I took her and her friend out the back. They're pretty wet, but they're safe.”

“And happy?” 

She hissed through her teeth and gave him the head tilt for good measure. “Maybe?”

“Liar,” he said resignedly, already moving towards the back door. Something stops him, the way it always did, and he turns back to her, small and pathetic-looking with her dripping hair and smudged makeup.

“Where's your boy?” 

“Oh, he's not mine,” she fires off quickly, and his traitorous fucking heart still does that ridiculous leap. Maybe it always will. Maybe he's already taken his turn, and lost, and he just doesn't know it.

Maybe the dice are spilling across the table right now, and that's the sound they're making, that muted throb that sounds like interference from an old-fashioned radio.

_Fidelidad, fidelidad, fidelidad ..._

He's standing there, looking at her, fiddling with his wedding ring as the soundtrack of his night moves from a gentle samba to this inescapable dirge.

“You been together since College? Why the hell not, V?”

Her jaw firms and her nose tilts up, immediately bringing back a million different ways he had managed to incite her wrath. This one, though, he'd never touched. Too afraid of the answer, he suspects.

“Don't be like that, Weevil! Not everybody's like you! Not everybody does well with commitment!”

“It's Eli now, girl. Has been for years. And you don't know what the fuck I'm like anymore.”

Her smile is sad and sweet and nearly has him reaching for her. “Yes, I do,” it says, and “that's what I like about you.”

(Ten years ago, watching the sun sink behind Dog Beach and playing twenty questions in the front seat of that huge old Impala. “Your loyalty,” she had said, and he never would have questioned it, not then.)

But now, he has a drumbeat in his head, and it's a warning, and a reminder, and sounds like his fucking doom. 

Because he is loyal still, and doesn't let go, and she doesn't even know that he'd been in love with her, the whole fucking time.

And now she never will.


End file.
